Afternoon Drive withJoanne Joseph

This week Technobyte comes to you live from Palo Alto in California as I travel with entrepeneurs in the Discovery MedTech Programme in the heart of Silicon Valley. We also look at a “Uber for dogs” and San Francisco’s transport system gets hacked.

Technology is rapidly changing the healthcare industry and enabling individuals to spend less time in the doctor's office.

This year alone, millions of American consumers will have their first video consults, receive prescriptions through health apps, manage medical expenses and use their smartphones as personal diagnostic tools.

Over the past three years, the healthcare venture industry has generated $55 billion for Limited Partners back to investors, with $1.76 billion alone invested in Biopharma in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Discovery, in partnership with En-novate, is taking a first-ever trip to Silicon Valley, USA for for South Africa's most innovative tech-enabled health and wellness Enterprises.

Our week-long trip will look at how technology is transforming the American healthcare system, new innovations designed for emerging market consumers, and alternative approaches to venture capital.

Finding and vetting a good walker involves confusing and conflicting web research, from Yelp to Craigslist. And there’s no reliable way to tell how good or bad a walking service is.

Coming home to find the dog alive and the house unsoiled is pretty much the only criteria for success, unless one snoops via camera or neighbor.

This is the main selling point for Wag Labs, which operates in 12 major cities, and Swifto, which has been serving New York City since 2012. Both services track dog-walker travels with your pooch via GPS, so clients can watch their pet’s route in real-time on dedicated apps.

This solves the nagging question in dog-walking: whether and to what extent did the trip actually happen.

San Francisco Municipal Railway riders got an unexpected surprise this weekend after the system’s computerized fare systems were apparently hacked.

According to the San Francisco Examiner, the MUNI system had been attacked on Friday afternoon. MUNI riders were greeted with printed "Out of Service" and "Metro Free" signs on ticket machines on late on Friday and Saturday.